March 17: In April last year, the government declared Nepal self-sufficient in milk and dairy products, including livestock. However, the market is facing a shortage of milk in less than a year after the announcement.

The market, which was down due to the impact of Covid-19 pandemic, has started to gain momentum now. This has increased the demand significantly, causing the shortage.

At the time of Covid-19 pandemic, the milk industry had reduced milk collection after the demand for milk had dropped by around 50 percent.

“As the effects of the pandemic receded, the market opened up, which led to a sharp rise in demand for milk. Now the stocks are all used up, so the shortage has increased,” said Sumit Kedia, the outgoing president of the Nepal Dairy Association.

According to him, there was a demand of around 450,000 liters of milk per day at the time of the pandemic. At present, the demand has increased to around 800,000 liters per day. However, the production is only around 620,000 liters, causing an immediate shortage of 180,000 liters of milk in the market.

Around this time last year, Nepal had stocks of 41,000 metric tons of powdered milk and 25,000 metric tons of butter. At present, about 80 percent of the daily demand for milk is met through milk packets and 20 percent of the milk is produced and sold in the form of ice cream, yogurt, cheese and other dairy products.

Kedia pointed out that milk production normally declines from April to August after the onset of summer and the demand for dairy products like yogurt and ice cream increases by about 35 percent this time compared to other seasons.

"It is unfortunate for our industry and the market that there is a shortage of milk which was declared self-sufficient by the state," said Kedia.

Currently, there is a shortage of butter and powdered milk in the market. Spokesperson of Nepal Dairy Development Board Dr Balak Chaudhary said that there is shortage of some dairy products in the market as the dry season has started.

According to him, only liquid milk is available in the market while all the stocks have been used up by now. The Dairy Industry Association has submitted a memorandum to the board demanding that the industrialists and businessmen should be allowed to import liquid milk from India and other countries as there are problems in meeting the market demand.

The president of the association, Raj Kumar Dahal, said that the problem can be solved by importing food from abroad. However, some industrialists, businessmen and the Dairy Development Board have stressed on collecting milk from remote areas to meet the demand. They argue that the remote areas are not connected to the formal sector and could not supply milk to the market.

According to Chaudhary, spokesperson of the board, even though about 6.3 million liters of milk is produced daily in Nepal, only about 3.1 million liters of milk comes to the market and the rest are used by the dairy farmers themselves.